How to read your NCLEX Candidate Performance Report
The Candidate Performance Report is the only official feedback you get after a failed NCLEX attempt. It gives you fifteen ratings and no explanation of what any of them cover, how much of the exam each one is worth, or which ones tend to fail together. This page is that missing explanation.
What the three ratings mean
Every area on your report carries one of three labels. They describe where your estimated ability sat relative to the passing standard in that area, not a percentage correct.
- Above Passing
- Your performance in this area was above the standard. It is maintenance, not a place to start.
- Near Passing
- Your performance sat close to the standard. Close is not the same as met, and a report full of Near Passing is a real pattern rather than a near miss.
- Below Passing
- Your performance was below the standard in this area. How much that cost you depends on how much of the exam the area is worth.
The eight content areas, and how much of the exam each one is worth
Your report rates all eight of these areas with the same three words, which makes them look equally important. They are not. The percentages below are the NCSBN Distribution of Content figures from the test plans effective April 2026, and RN and PN differ materially. A gap in the heaviest area costs several times more questions than the same gap in the lightest one.
NCLEX content areas with the percentage of the RN and PN exam each represents| Content area | RN | PN |
|---|
| Management of Care | 15–21% | 18–24% |
|---|
| Safety and Infection Prevention and Control | 10–16% | 10–16% |
|---|
| Health Promotion and Maintenance | 6–12% | 6–12% |
|---|
| Psychosocial Integrity | 6–12% | 9–15% |
|---|
| Basic Care and Comfort | 6–12% | 7–13% |
|---|
| Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies | 13–19% | 10–16% |
|---|
| Reduction of Risk Potential | 9–15% | 9–15% |
|---|
| Physiological Adaptation | 11–17% | 7–13% |
|---|
NCSBN notes that an individual exam may vary from these targets by up to three points per category.
What sits under each area
These are the Related content lists the pre-2023 report printed under every category and the Next Gen report removed. They come from the current test plan.
Management of Care 15–21% of the RN exam
Delegation, supervision, and deciding which patient or task comes first, plus knowing what only the RN can do.
- Assignment, delegation and supervision
- Establishing priorities
- Client rights, advocacy and informed consent
- Confidentiality and information security
- Continuity of care and referrals
- Ethical and legal responsibilities
- Collaborating with the care team
Safety and Infection Prevention and Control 10–16% of the RN exam
Preventing harm: infection control, fall and injury prevention, and safe use of equipment and procedures.
- Standard, transmission-based and surgical asepsis precautions
- Accident, error and injury prevention
- Safe use of equipment
- Restraints and safety devices
- Handling hazardous and infectious materials
- Home safety and ergonomic principles
- Reporting incidents and variances
Health Promotion and Maintenance 6–12% of the RN exam
Prevention and screening, growth and development, and teaching patients how to stay well.
- Growth, development and expected age-related changes
- Health screening and disease prevention
- Antepartum, intrapartum, postpartum and newborn care
- High-risk behaviors and lifestyle choices
- Self-care and health teaching
- Techniques of physical assessment
Psychosocial Integrity 6–12% of the RN exam
Mental health, coping, therapeutic communication, and supporting patients under emotional stress.
- Therapeutic communication
- Mental health concepts and behavioral interventions
- Coping mechanisms and stress management
- Crisis intervention
- Abuse and neglect
- Substance use and dependencies
- Grief, loss and end-of-life care
- Cultural, religious and spiritual influences on health
Basic Care and Comfort 6–12% of the RN exam
Comfort and daily needs: mobility, nutrition, hygiene, elimination, rest, and non-drug pain relief.
- Mobility and immobility
- Nutrition and oral hydration
- Elimination
- Personal hygiene
- Rest and sleep
- Assistive devices
- Non-drug comfort measures
Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies 13–19% of the RN exam
Giving medications safely: expected effects, dangerous side effects, what to monitor, and what to teach.
- Medication administration
- Expected actions and outcomes
- Adverse effects, contraindications and interactions
- Dosage calculation
- Parenteral and intravenous therapies
- Central venous access devices
- Blood and blood products
- Pharmacological pain management
- Total parenteral nutrition
Reduction of Risk Potential 9–15% of the RN exam
Catching complications early through lab values, diagnostic results, and changes that signal trouble.
- Laboratory values
- Diagnostic tests
- Changes and abnormalities in vital signs
- System specific assessments
- Potential for complications of tests, treatments and procedures
- Potential for complications after surgery
- Therapeutic procedures
Physiological Adaptation 11–17% of the RN exam
Caring for unstable and acutely ill patients, and managing body-system complications.
- Pathophysiology
- Alterations in body systems
- Fluid and electrolyte imbalances
- Hemodynamics
- Medical emergencies
- Illness management
- Unexpected response to therapies
The clinical judgment rows
The Next Gen report added rows for the steps of clinical judgment. These are not content areas, they are the thinking process applied to whatever content a question happens to use. NCSBN has never published topic lists for them, and inventing some would be false precision, so what follows is what each step is asking of you.
- Clinical Judgment (overall)
- Your overall decision-making across the exam, combining the six steps below.
- Recognize Cues
- Noticing which findings in a scenario actually matter.
- Analyze Cues
- Working out what those findings mean and which problem they point to.
- Prioritize Hypotheses
- Deciding which problem is most urgent when several compete.
- Generate Solutions
- Building the plan once the priority problem is clear: the expected outcome, and which interventions, monitoring, teaching and precautions actually fit it.
- Take Actions
- Choosing which of those interventions to carry out, in the right order, and doing it correctly.
- Evaluate Outcomes
- Judging whether what you did worked, and what to do if it did not.
Why two Below ratings are often one problem
Read line by line, a report with several low areas looks like several separate subjects to relearn. It usually is not. Some areas fail together because they test the same underlying habit, and a student who treats them as separate builds a plan twice the size it needs to be.
Catching the patient who is going bad
Lab values, diagnostic results, complications, and the early signs that someone is changing. These two areas nearly always move together, because they test the same habit: noticing trouble before it announces itself. Treat them as one gap.
Deciding who comes first
Delegation, supervision, scope, and ranking patients by acuity. This is the heaviest single area on the exam, so a gap here costs more questions than a gap anywhere else.
Medication safety
Expected effects, dangerous effects, what to monitor, and what to teach. Weakness here is usually a small number of drug classes doing most of the damage, not the whole subject.
Preventing harm at the bedside
Precautions, injury prevention, equipment, mobility, and daily care. Both rows come from the same reflex: thinking about what could go wrong before it does.
Treating the person, not just the problem
Teaching, prevention, development, communication, and mental health. These fail together when the instinct is to reach for a task instead of talking to the patient.
What the report cannot tell you
- Your score. There is not one. The NCLEX is pass or fail.
- Which individual questions you missed, or which topics inside an area cost you.
- How close you were overall. Bands are reported per area, not summed.
- Whether your problem is knowledge or test taking. That has to be read out of the shape of the whole report, which is what the tool above does.
Common questions
- What is the NCLEX Candidate Performance Report?
- It is the document Pearson VUE sends you after a failed NCLEX attempt. It rates your performance in each area of the test plan as Below Passing, Near Passing, or Above Passing. It is the only official feedback you get about how you did, and it does not include a score.
- What does Near Passing mean on the CPR?
- Near Passing means your ability estimate in that area sat close to the passing standard. It is not a near miss you can ignore and it is not the same as passing that area. Several Near Passing ratings across the report usually matter more than one Below Passing rating on its own.
- Does the CPR tell me my score?
- No. The NCLEX is pass or fail and the Candidate Performance Report contains no score, no percentage correct, and no rank. It reports a band per area and the number of items you were given.
- Does the number of questions I got tell me how close I was?
- Not on its own. Running to the maximum number of items means the exam had not yet reached a confident decision about you, which is a different situation from shutting off early. That is context to read alongside your bands, not a result by itself.
- Why does the CPR not say which topics I got wrong?
- Before 2023 the report printed a Related content list under each category. The Next Gen version removed those lists, along with the percentage of the exam each category is worth. Nothing replaced them, which is why the report feels unreadable. The lists on this page restore them from the current test plan.
- Are all eight content areas worth the same?
- No, and this is the single most useful thing the report does not tell you. The CPR rates every area with the same three words, but Management of Care is around 18 percent of the RN exam while Basic Care and Comfort is around 9 percent. Being weak in one is not the same size problem as being weak in the other.
- Is this tool affiliated with NCSBN or Pearson VUE?
- No. ThinkNote is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to NCSBN or Pearson VUE. NCLEX is a registered trademark of NCSBN.
- Do you keep my Candidate Performance Report?
- No. The file is read in memory and never written to disk, and your name and candidate ID are stripped before anything is processed.
ThinkNote is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to NCSBN or Pearson VUE. NCLEX is a registered trademark of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc.